2 dead in school shooting after online warnings

LOS ANGELES (AFP) – A US student who had issued chilling warnings on Twitter opened fire in a school cafeteria on Friday, killing at least one person and critically injuring three before taking his own life.

Terrified classmates dived for cover as the gunman, identified by media reports and fellow students as Jaylen Fryberg, launched his attack in a school in the northwestern state of Washington.

Police said the investigation was still ongoing and would likely continue into the early morning Saturday.

“This continues to be an active homicide investigation. We want to make sure we do this right and have all of the right answers,” local police spokesman Robb Lamoureux told a press conference late Friday.

As with previous such shootings, the episode revived debate on gun control, even though the gun involved was legally acquired.

A young woman holds her head in her hand as she kneels before candles and flowers in Marysville, Wash, after a memorial vigil held for people affected by a shooting at Marysville Pilchuck High School earlier in the day. – AP

“I heard one loud bang and I was wondering what it was. Then I heard about four or five more. People started screaming and people started getting to the ground and going for the nearest exit,” said a student identified as Jordan.

“So I hit the ground. But after he’d already put some bullets into the backs of students,” he told CNN.

The shooting, just the latest in a long line of such rampages in the United States, erupted in Marysville, 35 miles (55 kilometres) north of Seattle.

Lamoureux declined to identify the shooter or comment on online suggestions, including on Fryberg’s social media posts, that the attack might have been triggered by a failed romance.

“The shooter died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound,” he said earlier in the day.

Television footage showed swarms of police descending on the Marysville-Pilchuck High School as students, some with hands on heads, came out of the sprawling campus, which has some 2,500 students.

A student identified as Austin told KING 5 television how the gunman was initially “quiet” before opening fire on fellow diners.

“There was just a big group of kids… He was quiet. He was just sitting there. Everyone was talking. All of a sudden I see him stand up, pull something out of his pocket,” he said.

“At first I thought it was just someone making a really loud noise with like a bag, like a pretty loud pop until I heard four more after that, and I saw three kids just fall from the table like they were falling to the ground dead.”